Radiocarbon dating of marine carbonates
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Date
2015-06-18
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Springer Nature
Abstract
Marine carbonates such as shells and corals mainly consist of aragonite. Before samples are processed for radiocarbon dating, all contaminants must be removed; otherwise the determination of correct radiocarbon ages may not be achieved. Contaminants are derived from the surrounding environment if samples were buried in soils or sediments (e.g., secondary carbonates derived from groundwater and recrystallization of sample carbonate due to chemical exchange between the sample and the surrounding environment). These carbonate contaminants are mostly in the form of calcite. Contaminants can also be conservation materials in the case of museum specimens. Contamination cannot always be seen by naked eye. In such cases, samples should be screened for secondary carbonates and recrystallization and diagenetic alteration using X-ray diffraction, thin-section examination (McGregor and Gagan, 2003), or scanning electron microscopy (Webb et al., 2007; Nothdurft and Webb, 2009). © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015
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Keywords
Carbonates, Corals, Aragonite, Sediments, Soils, Carbon 14
Citation
Hua Q. (2015) Radiocarbon dating of marine carbonates. In: Rink W. J., Thompson J. W. (eds) Encyclopedia of Scientific Dating Methods, 1-6. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht, Switzerland. doi:10.1007/978-94-007-6304-3_151